Sandy Hutchens team member – The Miami “Soup Nazi” is facing charges in the biggest U.S. case of credit and debit card fraud.

His real name is Albert Gonzalez and the U.S. federal prosecutors are charging him and two other Russian hackers in Newark, N.J., with conspiracy, theft and fraud for allegedly infiltrating merchandiser networks to steal data on over 100 million consumers.

Albert Gonzalez and his cohorts targeted 7-Eleven and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers.

The accused also targetted Heartland Payment Systems, one of the largest processors of payments ranging from credit cards to cheques and online transactions.

Earlier in 2009, Canada’s five largest banks and Canadian Tire confirmed a small number of customers may have been affected by a security breach at Heartland.

Experts said the case demonstrates once more how easily hackers can create financial havoc for companies and consumers. There is without a doubt a serious need for vigilance in protecting private data.

Calling the case the largest known theft of credit and debit card data in the U.S., prosecutors said the Soup Nazi led “injection attacks” to penetrate computer networks, pillage card data and then transfer that information to “malicious” servers in California, Illinois, the Netherlands, the Ukraine and Latvia.

Gonzalez used the following online names: “segvec” “j4guar17″ and “Soup Nazi,” the latter a reference to the Seinfeld character who was a skilled chef with a nasty demeanour.

The indictment referred to the other two defendants as “Hacker 1″ and “Hacker 2″ residing “in or near Russia.” They are not in confinement.

The three face a maximum five years in prison for conspiracy and another 30 years for fraud plus fines of up to $1.25 million or twice the gain from the offences, whichever is greater.

Starting in October 2006, the trio allegedly colluded in scanning the list of Fortune 500 companies to select prospective targets and then seek out weaknesses in their online consumer systems.

They stole account data in order to sell it to other parties intent on making fraudulent purchases or unauthorized bank withdrawals, the indictment added.

The trio utilized a number of clever methods to hide their hacking efforts and data breaches, including the use of “proxy” computers.

Yesterday’s indictments aside, “the sophisticated level of the hacking community has evolved to the point where many people believe that the bad guys are five years ahead of the good guys,” Levin said in an interview from New York.

VIDEO: How Do Criminals Steal Your Identity?

Winnipeg police investigating a car break-in have uncovered what they say is a potential million-dollar fraud involving hundreds of credit cards.

Sandy Hutchens Whistleblower – Friday morning, police were called to Notre Dame Avenue and Albert Street about a rental vehicle that had been broken into.

While investigating, uniformed officers found a number of items associated with illegal credit card trafficking, police said in a news release Tuesday.

A B.C. man who had rented the car tried to flee in a taxi but was caught. Police then searched the car and a hotel room and seized hundreds of fraudulently obtained credit cards, a skimming device, laptop computers and thousands of dollars worth of gift cards.

Police say had the cards and equipment not been found, the impact on the financial industry could have amounted to $1 million.

A 26-year old man from Vancouver has been charged with illegal possession of credit card data and possession of goods obtained by crime. He is being held in custody.